Welcome to the Jolliest blog on the block! Each month we have a different theme. You choose your OWN chart, fabric and threads. Share your progress as you go along and post your finished piece by the last day of the month. You can join at anytime throughout the year and choose which months you wish to stitch with us. Happy Xmas everyone!

Saturday, 24 December 2016

Wishing all of my very dear bloggy/crafty/cross stitchy friends the very Merriest of Christmases and a safe and Happy New Year.

I would also like to thank you all for your friendship, support, advice, encouragement and kindnesses to me over the past year. This Christmas Ornie SAL blog, has been so much fun and such a joy to see the wonderful Christmas stitching that everyone creates, and gives me great pleasure to know that this blog has, just maybe, been of pleasure to you, too.

All the best for 2017 and I hope to see you all back on this SAL blog in January.

It's been crazy busy around here getting ready for Christmas to which you can probably all relate. Last night I managed to finish stitching my December ornament for this group, Country Cottage Needleworks' "Angels". I'd been looking at this design ever since it was released but this group's angel theme pushed me over the edge to buy and stitch it.

Saturday, 10 December 2016

I know, not this month's theme, but I wanted to share with you my family's 2016 ornaments. (I either make or buy ornaments each year for all 4 of our kids and one for DH and I to share. However many of us are together before Christmas have an "unveiling" before putting them on the tree the ornaments' first year.) This year I chose Santas on sleds. Both the designs and the sleds are by Foxwood Crossings and widely available in both online and brick and mortar needlework shops.

(I'm not sure why the pic is upside down. It's rightside up on my computer.)

Sunday, 13 November 2016

Hi Jolly Elves, Not long now until Christmas (I am not even going to frighten you by saying how soon - lol!).So luckily, I have this gorgeous PS Christmas Tree stitched up this month, all ready to be turned into an ornie. Now, Prairie Schooler designs do not usually use beads but I could not resist blinging up this design from Book #150, "December".

Friday, 28 October 2016

I have decided to stitch the Christmas Cubes by Primitive Hare as my Christmas project this year. I looked at the themes which Kaye had chosen for this year and all but two are covered by the Cubes. Perfect! It does mean that I will stitch the letters out of order but I can cope with that.

Here is Cube 8 - M

Here are the eight I have stitched so far:

And here is the first one finished into a cube:

I have some good news to share, I got an email from Immediate Media earlier this week telling me that I have been nominated in their Best Blog Category. I was blown away and had to log on to see the other nominees. I am in good company, there's a couple of designer blogs, one with 3 times the followers I have, a group blog and a couple of other bloggers who have really nice blogs, although one seems to be having a little break right now.

This is the website where you can vote - British Craft Awards. There are several categories to vote in and have your say. The first question asks if you live in the UK but that is only to assess your eligibility to be included in the prize draw. Non UK residents can still vote, so please do!

Wednesday, 26 October 2016

Hi there! It is nearly the end of another month... goodness me this year is flying by!

As we all know this month's theme is presents/toys. What a fun theme... there were so many things to choose from in my pile of magazines but in the end I picked a nice quick one!

This little Christmas Bunny was a freebie from a late 1990's/early 2000's issue of Cross Stitch Collection (I think...) She fits in with the theme as she is holding a beautifully wrapped Christmas present :o)

The kit came with 18ct Aida - it is stitched with one thread of DMC floss. (In the old days if they said DMC it was most likely really DMC thread!) I even managed to make up the card as soon as I finished the stitching (not often I do that!!)

So that was October.... onto November's Christmas Tree theme!

Now is this cheating... I hope not... I want to call it brilliant planning because I have already finished my Christmas Tree for November!!

This design was published in the Just Cross Stitch Christmas 2015 issue. The designer is From the Heart ~ NeedleArt by Wendy. I didn't use any of the recommended threads - instead the lettering is stitched in Dinky Dyes "Pilbara", the tree foliage in Dragon Floss "Stem Green" and the trunk and star in DMC.

Friday, 21 October 2016

I hope everyone is having a lovely October! So far our October here in eastern Canada has been fairly nice. Just wet and windy.

This month I chose Christmas ABC by Shepherd's Bush from the 2011 Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue. I chose this because there are 4 presents in it, well 3 for sure and one that I am 75% sure it is a present. Can you find them all?

I really had a lot of fun stitching this and can't wait to get started on more Shepherd's Bush patterns!

I love all the themes for next year! Right now I am going to check out what I have that I want to stitch that I can sneak into the themes each month. :)

Thursday, 20 October 2016

Drum Roll please (or at least listen to the wonderful version of The Little Drummer Boy sung by A Capella group, Pentonix, below)....

The themes for our Christmas Ornament Stitching for 2017 are revealed below..As the idea of having two themes running concurrently, seemed to meet with everyone's approval, we will be going ahead with that plan.So, THEME ONE.... THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS.....

On the First day of Christmas my true love sent to mea Partridge in a Pear Tree.

On the Second day of Christmas my true love sent to meTwo Turtle Dovesand a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

On the Third day of Christmas my true love sent to meThree French Hens,Two Turtle Dovesand a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

Subsequent verses follow the same pattern, each adding one new gift and repeating all the earlier gifts, so that each verse is one line longer than its predecessor:

There are so many different designs out there on this theme - I just did a quick Google search and look at all of these:

Now, here is the exciting part of the reveal.... As it happens (with a little bit of tidying up), we had exactly TWELVE suggestions for Theme Two, how is that for a bit of Serendipity? So, without more ado, here we are...

THEME TWO ....

January - Christmas Tree

February - Carols/Music

March- Tinsel/Christmas Lights

April - Snowy Scenes

May - Sleighs/Reindeer

June - Christmas Words/Phrases

July - Birds/Animals

August - Blingy Ornaments

September - Santa

October - Nativity

November - Primitive Christmas Designs

December - The Three Kings/Wise Men

Now, remember, please, this is meant to be a no-stress, fun SAL, so please feel free to stitch either Theme One or Theme Two or both or dip in or out of either as the mood takes you.

My plan (at this stage) is to stitch Theme One and to dip in and out of Theme Two, as the fancy (and time) takes me.

To that end, I have already organised my Twelve Days of Christmas Design. It is a Jim Shore design, I have always wanted to own one of his ornaments, and now I have the chance to stitch one (or twelve, really).

I have all of the floss, beads and buttons ready, I just need to get my fabbie organised and decide whether to stitch one large piece or twelve single ornaments. I am leaning towards one large stitched piece.

So, I hope that you are happy with next year's themes, I know that I am.

Wednesday, 19 October 2016

For my September ornament, I stitched the companion for my July gingerbread man, only I stitched her on 14-count plastic canvas instead of fabric. I'm in the process of making several of these to hang on my tree.

For my October ornament, I chose Mill Hill's Holiday Express, because who doesn't like to see a train circling the tree.

Sunday, 9 October 2016

I can't believe it's not the last day of the month and I've stitched mine already. Take note, because this may not happen again for a very long time. ;-)

While looking for what to stitch, I remembered that I'd started it but it's been languishing in my wip pile. So......killing 2 birds with one stone I finished a wip that works perfectly for the theme. It's by Little House Needleworks, one of my favorite designers.

Wednesday, 28 September 2016

Isn't it amazing what you can find when you go rummaging around in your stash! I was looking through my stash of Christmas designs for something pudding or food like but nothing jumped out until I raided the box of magazine freebies....

So who would like some figgy pudding? This is a Jane Greenoff design. I am not sure what magazine it came from originally (probably Needlecraft UK) but it would have been from the late 80's or early 90's I suspect.